To emphasize this year’s theme, “We Are One,” the student body participated in a day of service, where three hours were committed to giving back to the school, Nov. 22. The students were broken into groups to help with innovatory, cleaning and other projects across campus.

The service day wasn’t billed as students serving off campus but instead serving within the FCS community, including the ministries of Peoples Church who we share the campus with.

Student jobs were to clean and reorganize classrooms and closets, spread wood chips across the Kindergarten playground, painted art board for Christmas Tree Lane, made blankets for a local elementary school, washed and cleaned the bleachers and junior high lunch tables, spread gravel around bleaches and behind the library and cleaned up two school mini storages.

The students attended their first two classes, went to chapel and then divided into groups. A goal in splitting into different sections was to allow each program to involve those who had interest in that area. For example, football players helped Athletic Director Dan Stockton with the stadium and field work, while a creative group helped in prepping the supplies for future classes with art teacher Sharon Scharf.

“It’s important for the students to be serving,” Gillespie said. “Later, if they hadn’t done all this, either Mr. Foshee or myself would have had to do it on our own. There are a lot of needs on campus and I think it’s important for them [students] to not take what they have for granted. Now they have some ownership over it.”

Administration is anticipating an all-school service day in the spring which will take students to many venues across Fresno and Clovis.

Be sure to return to this paper for updates on the spring service day. For more information, read Tynin Fries’ Nov. 22 article, “Students explore service opportunities close to home.”